


Astralphysiastrics

by Worts (wortlby2)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aspec Friendly, Aziraphale's True Form (Good Omens), BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Couch Cuddles, Crowley Loves Outer Space (Good Omens), Crowley's True Form (Good Omens), Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Podfic Welcome, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), The Fall (Good Omens), War in Heaven (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 08:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21715363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wortlby2/pseuds/Worts
Summary: An innocent observation by Adam Young opens an extremely unwelcome can of worms, and now Crowley and Aziraphale find themselves forced to have a conversation they'd always hoped to avoid.  The War to Begin All Wars left scars on every level, but the skills Crowley thought he'd left behind when he fell from Heaven might be able to mend them, just a bit.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 58
Kudos: 359
Collections: Aspec-friendly Good Omens, Chaotic Omens: The Fallout of a Big Bang, Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019, Hurt Aziraphale





	Astralphysiastrics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NightValeian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightValeian/gifts).

> NightValeian's gift for the 2019 Good Omens Holiday Swap. Sorry I couldn't do that Regency AU for you, but I tried smooshing two of your other prompts together.  
1\. Aziraphale suffers from an injury from the war with the Fallen (Crowley doesn't know about it b/c he hides it)  
2\. Touch-starved Aziraphale bc Heaven is cold and distant post Fall and any touch from anyone is such a wonderful thing
> 
> This is the first fic I've completed and posted in almost a decade! I hope you like it!
> 
> Thanks to humanshapedstress, [Doctor Science](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mecurtin/pseuds/mecurtin), and [EdnaV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdnaV/pseuds/EdnaV) for helping me hash out an idea and [Starknight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starknight/pseuds/starknight) for tag wrangling. 
> 
> Thanks to my favorite slutty beta [Robynthemagpie_Writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robynthemagpie_writes/pseuds/robynthemagpie_writes), always being there for my stories. :-*

It was Adam’s fault really. He hadn’t meant anything by it, of course. It was just that the boy was a natural Instigator, always looking for the unusual and constantly asking the kind of questions other people wished to avoid. Normally this was something Crowley appreciated about the boy. Unfortunately, while as a trait it was hilarious when directed at other people, it was distinctly uncomfortable when applied to himself or anything that affected him directly. 

Take today for instance. It had been a nice day when he’d arrived with Aziraphale in Tadfield to help Anathema identify a mysterious object she’d encountered on one of her occult investigations, which had been quite easily done. They’d had a nice picnic after that, including a nice conversation with the young witch and her hapless husband that had drifted off eventually into a nice bit of cloud gazing and watching the Them run around on the grass. 

In short, there had been a general theme of niceness to the proceedings, which evaporated completely when Adam cocked his head, looked at Aziraphale as though trying to squint at something far away, and asked in all innocence a question that was nice in one sense of the word, and _ not nice at all _in another. 

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

Aziraphale looked confused. “Doesn’t what hurt?”

“There’s a part of you that’s all,” Adam struggled to find words for which human language was wholly inadequate, “....squiggly.” he finished lamely. “Not your body you.” he said, spiraling his arms out in an expansive gesture, “the bigger you. The angel bit. There’s a bit of that bit that just sort of ends where I don’t think it ought to. I reckon that must hurt, right? But you seem okay.”

Startled, Crowley couldn’t help looking, just a quick peek. Aziraphale hid it quickly in a swirl of eyes and feathers, but not fast enough to avoid Crowley seeing that the angel’s Grace was indeed damaged. One of its many wings[1] was clipped, the elegant fractals ending in a snarl of terminated probabilities. An obvious deformity. How could he not have known, all these millennia? 

Thing was, there was a first time for everything, and it had simply never occurred to him to look at Aziraphale with his other eyes. Bodies were part of the whole Earth gig since their celestial forms were a bit useless for all this “matter”, “linear time” and "not exploding the heads of mortals with a friendly hello" business without them. And beings with bodies and a general sense of each other’s energy had no particular need to peek at what was under the hood so to speak. Even when the angel had appeared before him discorporated on the day of the Nopacalypse, his form had still been folded up in the pattern of his beloved body, molded by centuries of habit, and Crowley had been too drunk or too distracted to look below that surface layer. 

Now that he _ was _looking, the demon’s thoughts turned inevitably towards the fact that there were very few ways an angel’s Grace could be damaged like that, even as his brain frantically tried to put on the brakes and, failing that, find the emergency exit.

“Adam, isn’t all of him the ‘angel bit’, actually? If he is an angel, although really that just seems like a relic of an outmoded belief system if you ask me..” 

Wensleydale’s completely unreasonable reason snapped Crowley out of it. This was a bit of an out of the frying pan and into the fire situation, since it meant he was now looking directly at Aziraphale’s face, rather than through it, and the angel’s expression was like being stabbed in the soul. 

“Well, I didn’t ask you Wens, and yeah, I reckon that his body is angel too, but there’s an _ angelier _bit to ‘em and it’s important like the bit of the iceberg you don’t see﹘ ”

“But he’s all right here. Are you trying to say some of him is in the ocean? That doesn’t make _ any _sense.” said Brian

“He means in the astral plane _ stupid_!” Pepper said, with all the confidence of someone who had been born in a commune and whose mother still had a few New Age angelology books on the shelf for old times sake.

“That’s enough out of all of you,'' Anathema cut in, “Staring is rude, and so is commenting on someone’s body, no matter how many dimensions it exists in.”

Adam contrived to look sheepish,”Er, sorry Mr. Fell”

“It’s quite alright, my boy.” the angel said in a tone that suggested it was several days ride away from alright, “you didn’t mean any harm I’m sure.”

Crowley tried not to wince at the hollowness of the angel’s voice. 

* * *

As the Bentley roared towards London, Crowley was thinking about things that he and Aziraphale didn’t talk about for the sake of their friendship. There were quite a lot of these, most of which were perfectly natural given their personalities and some of the habits that they’d acquired from close proximity to humanity, but there were also the Things We Don’t Talk About. 

Chief among the unspoken Chernobyl Exclusion Zones of their ancient hearts was We Do Not Talk About the War, No, You Don’t Need to Ask Which War Because We Both Know Exactly Which War We Are Not Discussing In Any Way. 

The problem with Not Talking About the War was that it made it hard to talk about how you were not talking about it. Which made it hard to even think about. Which was precisely the state of things they were both happy with most of the time. This left them both woefully unprepared to cope with moments like the present, when neither of them were happy and Crowley would really like to just desperately ignore the entire situation until it went away. 

He couldn’t. As the angel continued to sit in uncharacteristic silence beside him, his traitorous mind kept returning to Aziraphale’s terrible wound, and his own blessed ignorance of it. The War hadn’t been kind to anyone, and while he’d gotten the shorter end of the stick in that regard, he should have known....

_ Doesn’t that hurt? _

Did it hurt? It looked painful, Crowley had his own scars, but nothing so spectacular, and _ who did that to you _ and oh, Satan, his fingers were gripping the wheel so tightly it might break and he feels fire in his head and on his breath and…

“_Crowley!_”

Tires squealing, world spinning, turn missing, the Bentley spun out and came to rest facing the wrong way by the side of the quiet country road. 

“Crowley, are you alright?” the angel’s eyes were round and worried. 

_ That’s what I should be asking you and...shitohshitohshit. I made it _worse.

“I um...I…”

Aziraphale sighed and slumped against the window. “Please just...let’s go home.” 

“Yes, sorry.” said Crowley, unsure what was worse: that the angel wouldn’t look at him, or that he wasn’t being even a little bit snippy about his driving. 

The rest of the drive home was, uniquely in the near century of Anthony Crowley’s time as a motorist, taken at the speed limit. 

* * *

The demon didn’t bother waiting for an invitation when he pulled up to the bookshop, just rushed over to open first the Bentley’s door, then the shop’s, and followed the angel in. 

Aziraphale visibly relaxed once they crossed the threshold, but the amount of wringing going on in the vicinity of his hands would have given a church bell a headache. 

“Well. A drink never went amiss, eh?” 

The bright brittleness of his voice was a warning, but Crowley couldn’t help himself. He crowded close as the angel made for the wine cooler. 

“Crowley?”

“Yes?”

“You’re hovering.”

“Er… ”

“I only mention it because I’d quite like you to stop.”

“Ah.”

Neither of them moved. There wasn’t so much an elephant in the room as there was a three-ring circus, complete with clowns[2]. Six thousand years and they were still just rubbish at this. But while Crowley had never been particularly brave, there was always a reserve of courage in his heart for Aziraphale. He reached out, and cringed when he felt the angel flinch at the touch of his hand, but felt obliged to press on. 

“Angel, about what happened today...what Adam said. I’m sorry, whatever happened to you ﹘ ”

“You know I hardly feel it anymore? I haven’t thought about it in a long while. Funny...hah, how much a body can make you forget. Hides any number of things.” He didn’t turn around, one hand frozen on the cooler, the other clenching and unclenching at his side. 

Crowley swallowed. “It does hurt though, doesn’t it?”

The angel turned and brushed Crowley’s hand irritably off his shoulder. “Oh, what does it matter! It was a long time ago. It can’t be healed. There is no point in discussing it.”

Crowley’s own frayed temper began to overflow. “If you think I’m leaving you here with shaking hands to stare off into the middle distance you’ve got another thing coming!”

“Crowley…”

He couldn’t hold back the question burning his heart anymore. “_Who did this to you?!”_

Aziraphale snapped, suddenly and completely. “_You did! Your side!” _he snarled, and then Crowley was drowning, pulled down by the treacherous undertow of the angel’s memory. 

* * *

_The Hosts of Heaven stood waiting, their cohorts gleaming in ultraviolet and gold. There was a feeling in the air that could have been described as the moment right before a storm, but storms hadn’t been invented yet, and so the assembled angels couldn’t put a name to what they were sensing, and that made them even more nervous. Nervousness was quite novel in and of itself, although the discontent of the Rebels had given everyone ample opportunity to get used to the feeling recently. _

_ The Principality Aziraphale felt a responsibility to cheer up the members of his platoon, but wasn’t having a lot of luck. _

_ “Awful lot of shouting,” said Niriel, “It’ll come down to a fight.” _

_ “Come now, chin up! No need to be so grim.” _

_ Urayiel shook her feathers irritably, “Principality, there’s no point in pretending. Samael’s done it this time, and﹘ ” _

_ “Don’t say the Name!” the little angel beside her squeaked. _

_ “What, you think he’s going to come out here and smite you if you say it too loud Seliphale? Anyway, they say he’s got a new name, they all have.” _

_ Niriel poked their comrade with a casual emanation “What was it again?” _

_ Urayiel sniffed “Something pretentious. ‘Lightbringer’ I think.” _

_ Fed up, Aziraphale put his foot down, “That is enough chit-chat from all of you. Smarten up! Unless you want Zadkiel to come by and see us the only ones in the company out of order.” _

_ Urayiel tilted three pairs of eyes at him as though she was about to say something insubordinate, but whatever it was died in the din of discordant trumpets. _

_ “What in the Holy Name - ?” _

_ The Rebels were coming, and at the head of their ranks were Seraphim shining like a black aurora. They were… _ wrong. _ Aziraphale felt dread for the first time just looking at them, there was something changed. He’d thought it blasphemy, that Samael’s followers would change their Names, as though anyone could unmake and reshape the Name that was an angel’s core. It would be like making Her Word untrue, and that could never be. _

_ Maybe that’s what made the rebel Seraphim so terrible, made their rage-tinted flame seem hotter than they’d ever been before. There wasn’t a spare moment to contemplate the change, however, since the speed and purpose in the rebel angels’ movements left no doubt this was an attack, and if there had been any spare doubt to go around, it would have vanished as the thunderous song of the Archangels’ fury rang all the halls of Heaven like a bell. _

_ “Shields up!” Aziraphale yelled as the enemy Seraphim rained fire down from high above. The platoon obeyed, and with admirable precision, considering that before today every skirmish had been in play, all that practice nothing but a pleasant diversion from their regular duties. All across the field, millions of silver shields went up, and the flames slid off, although the feeling of their heat on his wings made Aziraphale quail inside. Was this a distraction? An attempt to attack their calm before the letting the numbers of the lower Choirs overwhelm them? They couldn’t really do much damage without coming down to engage… _

_ That was all the thought Aziraphale had time for before one of the Loyalist Seraphs soared towards the enemy ranks, white-blazing flame at the ready, and promptly began to scream as soon as it touched one of its erstwhile brethren. It crashed writhing into the army below, spreading red flame even as it was consumed, crushing lesser angels in its agony. _

_ Eons later, Aziraphale would read the first tales of mustard gas being used in the trenches of the Continent, and lock himself in his bookshop for a week. But that was only an echo of the shadow of what was happening around him now. _

_ Their ranks were breaking, the flame spreading exponentially, seemingly feeding on the pain and despair of every angel it touched, consuming them to extinction. _

_ “Stay together!” Aziraphale cried, ”Lock your shields and stay together or we haven’t a chance!” It was nigh futile, the cacophony of screams all around them made it impossible to think. He managed to drag Seliphale behind his shield before the next wave bore down, and he saw Urayiel staggering with a few of the others towards Principality Imamiah and her platoon, who’d raised a shield wall above themselves and were sticking grimly together. _

_ He locked eyes with the other Principality. “The Library! We can take shelter there maybe...we have to keep everyone together and go slowly, or we’re finished!” _

_ Imamiah’s crown shone with determination. “I don’t know what’s happening, so that seems like as good a plan as any,'' she drew herself up in a fierce whirl of feathers, “RIGHT! FORM UP YOU LOT! Back towards the Library, and keep your shields locked or we all burn!” _

_ The scattered remnants of three platoons limped back to the shelter of the near infinite halls of Heaven’s Library, where all the blueprints for Creation were kept. In retrospect, knowing their Adversary’s disdain for the Plan, they really ought to have seen what was coming. _

_ The explosion rocked the base of the Library steps, sending great hunks of heavy potentiality into the air and scattering the bedraggled angels. Aziraphale staggered, momentarily blinded. _

_ “Here! Boss, here!” trilled Seliphale. _

_ There was nothing for it but to follow her voice, then he felt strong arms lifting his wings. “C’mon sir, I’ve got you.” Niriel growled. As his vision cleared, he saw Seliphale gesturing desperately from behind a fallen pillar of firmament, not so far away. They would make it, they were fine… _

_ Then the Seraphim flew over again and nothing was fine at all. Niriel wailed as a burst of flame caught them squarely, and they pushed Aziraphale forward, but too late. The brush of unholy fire on the leading edge of a wing was enough to set it alight and even as he staggered under cover he felt it searing his Grace and knew with horrible certainty that it was only a matter of moments before it would consume him and whatever remnants of his platoon that had taken refuge here. _

_ “Cut it off, for God’s sake Seli! Cut it off!” _

_ “But sir...I…. Nir, Nir...they…” the little angel gibbered. _

_ Aziraphale grabbed her sword and swung it clumsily even as he whirled his wing around. Fortunately, Heaven’s weapons were more than sharp enough. Half the limb fell away, stinking as it burned, and Aziraphale dropped the sword with a sob. But the pain was better- _ anything _ was better-than the anguish of the flames. _

_ Dimly, he heard Seliphale sing a Word, and Imamiah’s strong voice joining her, and the pain ebbed. The other Principality helped him down, and brushed feathery tendrils away from his face. _

_ “That took guts brother. Now rest. For all the good it will do us.” She ran a comforting ray of light down his wings and moved to check on the others taking shelter in the rubble. _

_ “She won’t...She can’t let it end like this, surely even the first among us can’t tear down the Throne…” The pain was intense. Aziraphale tried to think of something pleasant to focus on. The quiet of the Library, the paddock where he passed time feeding the prototype animals, and the trip he’d taken with a few of his friends to that lovely new nebula Stellar Architecture had just unveiled. The new plans for Earth he’d snuck a look at during his filing. It was going to be lovely, so lovely... _

_ They felt it more than heard it, the rush of wind like a great tree falling and the thunder of a huge voice calling out. Then the tide of cries moved across the field, one voice amplifying another until it grew into a wall of sound. _

_ “Michael!,” they cried “Michael has thrown down the Dragon!” _

_ Imamiah sprang up, “That will fox them! Come on, we have to regroup!” _

_ “Even if their leader,” Aziraphale winced “their leader is defeated, we can’t go back out there with -” _

_ “But sir, look!” Seliphale pointed out from between the pillars shielding them. Teams of Ophanim were holding an enemy Seraph on the end of their spears, a safe distance from the flames, and a Cherub was moving in to shout a Word of destruction. The tide was turning and with it something rose in Aziraphale, icy cold enough to soothe the burn of his wound. Later, when he’d had considerably more experience, he’d possess the vocabulary to name it wrath. He stood up and drew his sword. _

_ “Seli, pick up your sword. Your shield too if you can find it. Everyone! Circle up!” _

_ The ragged band of angels made their way slowly across the battlefield, avoiding the burning remains of their comrades, gathering others as they went. The two Principalities led from the front, one fierce and fiery, and the other made terrible by pain and anger, and the lower Choirs of Rebels fled before them. They saw what was left of Zadkiel, when they passed by where the Dominion had fallen. Urayiel they never saw again. _

_ They fought until they reached the very edge of Heaven, until they saw the rebel angels flinging themselves from the edge, wings burning as they fell endlessly. The terrible wrath fell away with them. Aziraphale slumped against the pearly gates, and wept at the ruin of Heaven. _

_ He never wanted to hold a sword again. _

* * *

Crowley gasped as his consciousness was finally allowed to surface, and clutched at the angel for balance. They were both shaking and sweating, off kilter from the maelstrom of emotions they’d just shared. Crowley never got the chance to recover, because Aziraphale grabbed him by the lapels and pushed him across the room with a strength it was normally easy to forget he possessed. 

“Oof!” Crowley’s back had hit a bookshelf. 

“Tell me it wasn’t you!”

“Aziraphale what﹘”

“_Tell me it wasn’t you!_ Tell me you didn’t burn my brothers all around me!”

“Do I look like a bloody Seraph!?” he shouted angrily. “Do you think I could... that I ever would…” He pushed the angel away, but one strong hand came back up and pushed him into the bookshelf again with no apparent effort. 

“You’re clever! Tell me it wasn’t your idea! Was Hellfire one of your brilliant schemes!?”

“Have you lost your damn mind? Do you want to know where I was? What I was doing? Fine! Take it!”

* * *

_The memories of the angel who would one day be the demon Crowley weren’t as clear as Aziraphale’s. There was an overall sense of confusion, panic, and _ make-this-not-be-happening _ . _

_ This wasn’t what he’d wanted. He’d wanted to wear black and goof off amongst the nebulae a bit more than Virtue Lailah would like and perhaps be permitted to ask _ why _ they were building things the way they were. Would an opportunity to take the piss out of stuffed shirts like Sandalphon every once in awhile really be too much to ask? _

_ Apparently it was. _

_ He’d felt himself changing. It wasn’t unwelcome at first. He’d _ wanted _ change, anytime he wasn’t gently shaping burning hydrogen into carefully folded lattices of spacetime he was bored bored bored. For all his lithe grace, he was hopeless at the interminable drills, and was there _ anything _ more tedious than singing the Almighty’s praises? How much more confidence did a nigh omniscient and omnipotent deity need, anyway? _

_ The Archangel had come down in all his splendor, down to the tiny office where not-quite-Crowley sat at a D-brane drafting desk, wingtip to wingtip with Nawarael, plotting strings with stardust ink and wishing he were out in the field feeling gravity between his primaries[3]. _ _ “Cool” wasn’t in the concept stages yet, much less a prototype, and yet he’d known in some bone deep way that Samael was cool. The coolest. Yet he hung out with the guys as though he wasn’t five Choirs above them. As though they were friends. _

_ “I may call myself ‘Lucifer’ these days, but it’s you who do the work of lighting the void He made. And to think, all that labor you lot put in, and He won’t permit Humankind on any of those worlds but one rocky one around the rather unremarkable yellow dwarf.” _

_ “Does the Almighty let you see the Plan?” asked an angel from Dark Matter Auditing eagerly, “I heard He was making that world Himself.” _

_ “It’s true, and I’m not sure what He’s thinking. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of course, but he’s covered the thing in dihydrogen monoxide for some reason, and the star, well,” Lucifer had brushed one of un-Crowley’s wings casually and smiled,”not a patch on some of the stuff my little friend here is designing. Tell them about that new draft for the quark star darling. It’s fantastic!” _

_ The starry-eyed angel’s halo had never shone more brightly. Later, he wondered if this was what the planets he’d built felt like, when they fell into orbit. _

_ The talk had grown darker. Almost-Crowley had felt uneasy, but there was a way his friends would look at him when he said anything. “All questions are welcome” the Archangel had said, yet it became clear that some were more welcome than others, though no one ever reprimanded him or laughed at his designs at Lucifer’s soirees. Before he knew it, he’d felt as though he were drifting from his own Name, watching an angel he didn’t know go through the motions of his work, making uncomfortable modifications to his form to fit in with his new friends. _

_ And for what? Now it was all madness. They’d long ago stopped responding to the muster trumpet for drills, and when it sounded today he’d stayed loafing by an observation station listening to the cosmogonical harmonies of the latest batch of comets until some of his friends came by. Bernael had told him they were meeting up at the Hall of the Throne for something big and by the time they’d reached the Third Gate he’d been startled to see how many they were. They’d reached the Fourth, and he’d seen the ranks of angels in warrior getup, ready to bar their way, though they let Lucifer through. _

_ In the uneasy moments that followed someone had pressed a sword into his hands. _

_ “The Revolution begins now. Wait for the Seraphim to fly over, that’s the signal.” _

_ He’d panicked, slunk his way to the back of the crowd, and run. _

_ Not fast enough, he cursed his wings that wouldn’t let him go fast enough. He was making for the office with the vague idea of looking busy until the fuss blew over when the screaming started. _

_ There was smoke and a din like nothing he’d ever heard. His edges trembled as he made his way to the desk. He felt the whole place shake, but that was ridiculous, Heaven wasn’t so flimsy, yet he was thrown roughly against the entryway nonetheless. It would be a long time yet before he knew what it was like to want to throw up, but the celestial equivalent was overtaking his form. Maybe...maybe he should take the plans, just his favorites, and head somewhere quiet. There was that cute triple-system Nawa had designed. A bit wonky on the orbits but he’d always liked it. He had fond memories of assembling it with the lads, swimming and laughing in the flames of the red dwarf afterwards to celebrate a job well done. It was out of the way, nothing special in the grand scheme of things… _

_ The smell when he made his way back into the streets was unreal, and he almost dropped everything he was carrying when he saw the remains of the Library. He turned and fled the other way, trying to find a clear path to the outer gates, but there were angels everywhere, running every which way, trying to escape patches of clinging red flame. Some of it dripped on his feathers as he ran, and it made him feel awful, but he didn’t understand the fear. Not until he saw a Dominion that was chasing him fall afoul of some and disintegrate, every integer collapsing. _

_ It was all a blur after that. The little gap in some rubble he’d hidden in. The shouts and explosions. The terrible black wail and the voices crying out Michael’s Name. He sobbed and held his work closer, wrapped himself in layers of wings. Lucifer’s sister was no match for him in raw power, but she was rumored to be the most skilled warrior in Heaven, and if she’d beaten him then there was hardly any hope for the rest of them. _

_ They’d found his hiding place eventually, dragged him roughly into the streets, pulled the drafts from his hands. _

_ “No, no! Please, I - ” _

_ “Traitor!” _

_ “No, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know!” _

Liar_, they’d called him. _ Traitor. Monster. Freak. _ In their frenzy they branded his eyes, one by one, until he could hardly see, and threw him down at the very edge of Heaven. _

_ One of them grabbed him by the hair. “On your belly, traitor. Crawl! Crawl to your master and never think to look on the Almighty again.” _

_ He was sobbing, and crawling, and then falling, falling forever. He felt the pull of every moon and star, but couldn’t see them, couldn’t touch them, and somehow there was still farther to fall. Until he was enveloped in something that burned, something that seeped into every weeping eye like yellow poison and tainted his few remaining feathers. He thought he was going crazy, because he’d never known sulphur in such abundance, but the stench of it was unmistakable. _

_ His eyes would heal in time, and his feathers grew back, but his spirit took the longest to return. As soon as the demon Crawly pulled himself from the pool it became clear that there was a New Boss, worse than the Old Boss, and there would be consequences for those who fell out of line. He contemplated throwing himself into a black hole as soon as he got the chance, but the only thing that frightened him worse than pain was the thought of extinction. And why should he give the angels the satisfaction, he thought angrily? If Heaven didn’t want him, then forget them. _

_ A job was a job right? At least in Hell, he’d never be bored. _

* * *

The panic clung to Crowley, even as he surfaced again, struggling. An angel’s hands were on him, holding him down…

“It’s me! Crowley, it’s me!” Aziraphale stepped away, hands raised, even as he spoke. He was giving the demon space, a path to flee if he wished. “Oh darling, I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?” The angel covered his mouth with his hands, aghast. 

Crowley slumped back against the bookcase and reminded his corporation that it didn’t need to breathe at all, much less pant like a dog on an August day. “This is why we don’t talk about the War.” he groaned, “Why did I think it would be a good idea to talk about the War? I’m an _ idiot _.”

“Oh my dear, what they-what we did to you!”

Crowley straightened himself up and shrugged. “What am I always saying angel? There’s no ‘we’ but ‘us’ now. No side but ours.” He told himself to be cool, but he was never going to manage better than lukewarm, not when the angel was looking at him that way. “Heh. Broken as we are, who else is gonna want us, eh?”

Aziraphale made an inarticulate noise and stepped forward again, reaching out, but froze with his hand a scant inch from the demon’s face. Crowley grabbed his wrist before he could back away again, kissed the palm before pressing it to his face. The angel’s fingers curled gently around his cheek before tapping lightly on the side of his glasses. 

Crowley loved him for that. Aziraphale always asked, when he knew something was important. Hell didn’t ask. Hell took what it could get, until you learned to be quick and clever enough to take first. Heaven just _ expected_, and that expectation had all the power of force. Crowley would have let Aziraphale, of all people, remove the shield from his face without protest, but the angel always asked. No matter how exasperating, stubborn, or insensitive he was being, Crowley would love him for that reason alone. 

He took the glasses off and pocketed them. Aziraphale traced feather-light fingers across the corner of his eye. 

“All this time I thought you kept them like this on purpose. As a badge of honor, perhaps. Or a way to intimidate people. But you can’t change them can you?”

“No. I tried a few different corporations over the years, and went through all the settings with the girls in R&D, but eventually they had to throw up their hands. Morphic resonance they said. And I can just glamour people to see what I want them to see so they weren’t going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to dampen it. You’re lucky I only had your body for a day, or you’d be stuck like this too. It's my curse.” 

The angel smiled, "That doesn't sound like much of a curse. They're beautiful. Luminous." He traced the ridge of his demon's cheekbone tenderly. “Do they hurt? Your eyes?”

“No, they healed right up. Hardly any scars. Don’t see as well between 100 to 300 gigahertz as I used to but it hasn’t been relevant the past 6000 years, really.” 

The look Aziraphale was giving him was too much, too tender to bear. Impulsively, Crowley wrapped his arms around him and suddenly they were on the couch, the angel pressed to his chest. 

“Ngk...Crowley!”

“Don’t make it weird.” he begged.

“The upholstery, our shoes!” The angel made as though to get up and with an annoyed groan Crowley blinked and their shoes and clothes were gone, replaced with pyjamas and a thick blanket to cover them.

“Silk? Really?”

“Shut up angel. You’re making it weird.” He ran a hand through the angel’s hair and felt him melt into the embrace, as though he couldn’t help himself. Maybe he’d even convince Aziraphale to sleep[4]. Given how easily the angel had calmed, he should probably leave well enough alone, but he’d never been good at that. 

“So it doesn’t hurt much anymore? But it still hurts?” asked Crowley.

“A little. The body helps, it’s so good at feeling things, I almost don’t have time to feel anything else. There are good days and bad days.” 

Some things slotted into place. The layers of softness Aziraphale had built up over the years, not just on the body itself, but in the layers of clothes he wore until they were well broken in, wrapping the whole thing around himself tightly like a down comforter. And the food and wine, the plays and dancing. The beautiful objects and knowledge he acquired until his home was overflowing with them. All the pleasure he fed into it. 

“Being assigned to Earth was a reward for bravery in battle.” The angel sighed against his chest. “Or that’s what they said. The truth is, they wanted to be rid of me. A failure who lost half his platoon, and hideous to look at besides.” 

“Rubbish.” Crowley closed his corporation’s eyes, and opened all the other ones, reaching out to the angel. 

An angel’s true form is their Grace, which isn’t unlike a human soul, but larger, more brittle, and with all its doors of perception blown open. Demons, being of the same stock, have the same thing, just turned inside out and painted black[5]. Crowley unfolded his into the aether a bit, prodding Aziraphale with a bit of encouraging iridescence in an effort to get him to do the same. 

The angel’s Grace managed to draw away from and yearn toward the touch at the same time, quantum states alive and dead all at once. _ Oh, you don’t want to see﹘ _

_ There’s nothing wrong with you. You had to save yourself, and your friends. Who cares if it wasn’t pretty? _

Tentatively, Aziraphale unfolded as well. Crowley reached for the shattered structure of his scar. _ May I? _

The Principality’s crown dimmed, but he shimmered assent. Crowley brushed the injured wing gently, and massaged around the broken edges. The angel shuddered a little but within seconds relaxed against his touch. 

_ That is nice, _he warbled. 

_ Did no one think to do this for you? _

The angel’s many eyes blinked sadly. _ Heaven grew so cold after the Fall. So many lost sisters and friends, whether to the fighting or because they joined the Morningstar. Mmmm...right there please...we were expected to grin and bear it, couldn’t show any weakness. We stopped touching each other. Stopped singing. _

Crowley’s scales flared with indignation but he tried to tamp it down. The whine of warped possibilities from the angel’s wound was subsiding into a low buzz. He looked a little closer. _ Some of these strings, I think I can… _

_ Oh! I don’t think it’s a good idea to touch it! _

_ Trust me? I used to be pretty good at this kind of thing… _

_ With stardust! There’s a bit more to me than hydrogen Crowley. _

_ Well? Aren’t we all made of starstuff on some level? I’ll stop if it hurts. _

_ Very well. Just be careful. _

With an infrared hum, he began weaving slowly. Coaxed some threads back into place, tied others off a bit more neatly than they had been. When the work required a more gentle touch, he began kissing the spin back into bosons before delicately nudging them into the places they seemed to fit, until there was no more he could do. 

_ I’m afraid to do more. But that’s a little better, yeah? _

The angel was beyond words, and merely entangled him in a gentle euphoric radiance. They coiled softly around each other even as they sank back into their bodies, and when Crowley became fully aware of his skin again it was with Aziraphale’s lips pressed lightly to his. 

The angel pulled back with one of his happy little wiggles. “Sorry, did I ah… ‘make it weird’?” he said, mirth sparkling in his eyes. 

Crowley grinned. “A little weird, yeah, but I’ll tolerate it just this once.” He brushed a hand through his angel’s hair again, moved by the way he leaned into it. “Sorry, I can’t put it back together any better than that.” 

“Even if you could make me a whole new one, it wouldn’t be the same. I can’t thank you enough in any case. I feel lighter. It’s funny, how one becomes so used to pain that one doesn't even feel it, and its absence becomes a revelation.” He looked sheepish, “I’m sorry, my dear, for hurting you.”

“You’d never hurt me, not really.”

“I would have back then. Oh, I was so angry. I never wanted to feel that way again, and now I’ve almost pushed you through a bookshelf…” 

“It’s forgiven. Don’t _ fuss _ Aziraphale.”

“No, it’s not just that...every time I called you demon, implied I was better than you, reminded you of the Fall…”

“I’ll forgive you if you just keep still and sleep. I’ve a nice big bed back in Mayfair, I don’t have to be here giving an angel a cuddle like some kind of goody two shoes.” He shifted to a more comfortable position and rubbed the angel’s back. “Maybe we ought to talk about some things...but without the Vulcan mind meld, yeah?”

“Sometimes I find your idioms hard to follow,” Aziraphale said with a sigh,” but yes, perhaps tomorrow...after ordering in for breakfast?”

“Mmmhmm.” the demon agreed sleepily. The angel settled at his side with a contented wiggle and closed his eyes. He’d always found sleep difficult, but clasped in the warm circle of Crowley’s arms his breathing eventually slowed. The demon grinned when he heard the first gentle snore. He made a mental note to call Adam and thank him tomorrow. Even without meaning to, the boy was putting things to rights…

He followed the angel contentedly into sleep. For the moment, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt at all.

* * *

1 The 20th dimensional structure in question wasn’t exactly a “wing” per se, but since the English language is not equipped to accurately describe the appendages of ethereal beings, the word will have to suffice.Return to text

* * *

2All of them sad.Return to text

* * *

3What a rush! The angel liked gravity very much, and had some ideas about using it to automate the business of star creation. His superiors had made some disparaging comments about “craftsmanship” but he thought he could make the case that the end result was just as glorious and you wouldn’t end up with your fingertips pinched in tesseracts so much. It would also leave time for more creative projects, he was nervous about his presentation on pulsars, but if the Almighty could have His little jokes on the upcoming Human Race...Return to text

* * *

4 Nothing on Earth, or any other plane of existence for that matter, would make him admit it, but Crowley thought the sound of the angel’s snoring was one of the sweetest things in the universe. Return to text

* * *

5 A Disgrace, if you will. Return to text

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Don't @ me about butchering angel lore. 
> 
> I do want you to know however that quark stars are not something I made up. They are a purely theoretical kind of star that we haven't found any evidence of just yet, but theoretically _could_ exist. Looks like Crowley's plans were destroyed or never implemented. :( But I like to think maybe one day when he's not too busy defending the Earth or feeding the ducks, he'll get around to putting a few together like little astral needles in a cosmological haystack for someone to find. :)
> 
> Talk meta with me on Discord and [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/wortlby2)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Astralphysiastrics - Worts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24180253) by [spinner_of_yarns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinner_of_yarns/pseuds/spinner_of_yarns)


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